I well remember the evening when one of them--a slender young Prussian with no back to his head, braceleted and monocled--rose and announced, in the decisive tones that go with a certain stage of intoxication: "What we ought to do is to hand over the organization of this campaign to Thomas Cook & Sons!" However, the German officers were by no means all incompetents.

They realized (I soon found out) that they had little hope of bringing a big army through the Egyptian desert and making a successful campaign there.
Their object was to immobilize a great force of British troops around the Canal, to keep the Mohammedan population in Palestine impressed with Turkish power, and to stir up religious unrest among the natives in Egypt.

It must be admitted that in the first two of these purposes they have been successful.
The Turks were less far-sighted.

They believed firmly that they were going to sweep the English off the face of the earth and enter Cairo in triumph, and preparations for the march on Suez went on with feverish enthusiasm.

The ideas of the common soldiers on this subject were amusing.